It is one of those moments in history when the convergence of circumstances cannot be denied, when things may not be perfect but they cannot be ignored.

Steve Nash still has basketball to play and play at the highest level but the chance to have an impact on a country, to reach a promising group of young athletes at their very core, many of whom grew up idolizing him and to coax them to realize their full potential, was simply too good to turn down.

In what may turn out to be a watershed moment in the basketball history of this country, Nash returned to Canada Basketball as the general manager of its senior men’s team on Tuesday, ready to influence the next generation of young stars as no one in the sport ever has.

“One of the reasons why I really wanted to get involved now … is the incredible amount of talent we have at the younger age groups in this country,” the 38-year-old Nash said after taking over as the first senior team general manager in Canada Basketball history.

“It really is a beautiful thing to see our kids and the game grow and to continue to reach new heights.”

There are few athletes more identifiable with their sport in our country’s history than Nash is with basketball.

His, as has oft been told, is a story of perseverance and excellence: a young, relatively scrawny kid from Victoria who willed himself to the highest pinnacle of his sport, a two-time NBA most valuable player who made himself what he was through sheer hard work and determination.

He played for Canada for more than a decade, led it to a stirring run at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, was part of the quartet of icons who lit the cauldron to open the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games — he earned the nickname Captain Canada without question.

He is someone all young players in this country look up to, someone they hope to emulate and now someone from whom they can now take first-hand advice.

“He’s going to be a lighthouse for all the great Canadian players coming up,” said Wayne Parrish, Canada Basketball’s chief executive officer and the man who has been working for years to get Nash back in the fold in some meaningful role.

Nash, who will be assisted by long-time national team running mate and good friend, Rowan Barrett, understands that this may not be the greatest time in his life to take on a new and daunting challenge.

He is about to enter one of the busiest summers of his life, one of the top free agents in the NBA who will have to sift through myriad offers for one last contract.

But the promise in the game in Canada — there are more good, young players performing at the highest level of the younger age groups than ever before — was too much to pass up. He will be able to identify talent and select teams, to use his reputation as a drawing card for youngsters to whom the national program may not be important. He can talk to kids and make them see a chance to do what he did, take a relative backwater basketball country and make it relative.

“The ultimate reason I’m here is to put basketball on the upper echelon of the international game,” said Nash. “That’s the end goal. The journey’s great, we want to work every day to build a team, to build a program, to build a culture about our game but ultimately we want success. We want to be playing at the Olympics perennially. We want to be in the hunt for medals.”

It would have been easy for Nash to wait until his NBA career was over — he should be able to play for three more years and maybe more — to assume the role he did on Tuesday. No one would have denied him the chance to pursue whatever NBA goals remain; no one would have looked askance at him for waiting. But the time was right, the decision easy.

“I definitely wouldn’t have predicted it myself,” he said. “I think in a perfect world, it’s not now but I think now is a perfect time regardless of where I am in my career because of the talent we have in this country.

“Now we start to change the perception, the level, the success, the standard and turn it into a program that demands excellence in a country that is a basketball country in its own right.

That trumps waiting until the perfect time or waiting until I’m done playing.”

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.